


Acid

by Basingstoke



Series: Unfinished WIP clearinghouse [14]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), Torchwood
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke





	Acid

*

John Watson met Sherlock Holmes in the medical library at St Bart's; a day later, he'd met one policeman and six homeless people ("Less citric acid," he advised the junkie. "Honestly, what doesn't dissolve is talc; you're just hurting yourself.") and been kidnapped. 

"Oh," Sherlock said. "A taxi driver. Perfect killer." 

John sat, annoyed, with his mouth taped shut, and watched Sherlock and their cabbie stare at each other. "Choose," the cabbie said. 

"No. Can't be arsed. The gun's a fake, John," Sherlock said, and stood. 

John made a disgusted noise and stood as well. He dialed 999 and handed the phone to Sherlock. Then he started working the tape off his mouth without ripping the stubble from his face as well. 

"You'll never know if you could beat me!" the cabbie shouted. 

"Don't care," Sherlock said. He gave the operator their location. "And we have a murderer here, so quickly, if you please," he told the operator. 

"You'll never know who was behind this," the cabbie said. 

"Honestly don't care. Not part of my work."

The cabbie smiled. "Are you sure? I've seen a lot of doctors." Sherlock straightened up. "Too late, Mr. Holmes," the cabbie said. 

Sherlock hissed and raised John's phone as if to throw it. John caught his hand. And the cabbie took both pills and died as the police arrived. 

They got a ride home in the back of a police car. Sherlock drew his knees up on the seat and stared at John vacantly. "What is your work?" John asked. "You're not police--" 

"Certainly not. He'd never pass the psych," said the driver. Donovan, Lestrade had said, though John hadn't been formally introduced. 

"But Lestrade asked him to come to the scene," John said. 

"Did he? So sorry he couldn't make it," Donovan said. 

Sherlock looked away. "Solving crime is my work." A lie. "It's something I have to do." 

"Yes, what exactly are you working off?" Donovan asked. "My money is on interfering with a corpse, but Anderson thinks drugs." 

Sherlock didn't answer; didn't speak as they arrived at Baker Street; didn't speak until he unlocked the door. "Oh," he said then. "I suppose you aren't moving in." He still seemed far away. He wouldn't look at John. 

"Do you do drugs?" John asked. 

"No," Sherlock said, whipping his head around and staring at John. "No." 

John believed him. There was an edge to his voice--"Not any more?" he asked. 

"Not any more. I don't even smoke. I hit my bottom, believe me," Sherlock said. There was something wild in his eyes. 

"Of course I'm moving in."

"Oh." Sherlock looked down at his hand. "I'll fetch your keys, then." He opened the door. 

"But I would like to know what your work is." 

Sherlock climbed the stairs and didn't answer. 

*

John was not allowed in Sherlock's bedroom, not for life or death, not for love or money. He gave in the first day, peeked through the keyhole, but couldn't see anything. 

Apart from that, the flat was his. Sherlock didn't have any furniture, decoration, anything; he kept all his possessions in his room. "I thought I would go down to Oxfam. We need lamps," John said. 

"Do we?" Sherlock had emerged from his room for tea. John gestured to the empty sitting room--sofa, two chairs, one end table--but Sherlock didn't seem to register the echo. John had retrieved his books from storage, but that was just one box. 

"And we should get some food in. What do you like?" 

"I'm vegetarian." Sherlock stirred his tea, looking absent again. "And I'm not keen on... by-products. Eggs. Milk. Or fake meat. Vegetables are good. And bread." 

"Oh, all right. Vegetables and bread. Beans?" 

"Beans are good." 

He didn't know why he volunteered to do the shopping, except that Sherlock didn't seem like the shopping type. "If I have meat, is that all right?" 

"If I don't have to look at it." 

"Right. No bloody, raw steaks." 

Sherlock grimaced. "No." And he retreated back to his room, and John didn't see him for two days. Heard him use the bathroom, heard him make toast, but didn't see him. When he knocked on Sherlock's door to get money for his share of groceries, Sherlock slid his bank card under the door wordlessly. 

Well, it wasn't like he didn't know Sherlock was a weird bloke when he moved in. Honestly, he moved in because of it. 

*

And then two weeks later, Sherlock left the flat for two days and returned with windburn and a large box. After that, he started sleeping on the sofa. 

"Sherlock," John asked. 

Sherlock didn't look up from his computer, but John could tell he was listening by the set of his shoulders. 

"Did you fill your room?" John asked. 

Sherlock looked annoyed. He glanced over at John. 

"You can spread out. The flat is half yours. There's an entire bookshelf sitting bare." 

"I don't want you in my work." 

"I helped you before," John said. 

"With the crime solving, yes, fine, whenever you like." 

"And--" But Sherlock started to shut down, so John paused. "Anyway, I need to do laundry; will you carry the basket for me?" 

Sherlock nodded. John leaned on his cane and stood. "Why do you use that cane, anyway?" Sherlock asked. 

"I was shot," John said. 

"In the shoulder," Sherlock said. 

John ran his tongue over the inside of his teeth. "Tell me what your work is and I'll tell you why my limp is," he said. 

Sherlock didn't speak. 

"Laundry," John said, limping up to his room. 

*

Sherlock filled the spare bookshelf with books on astronomy, physics, English history from Cro-Magnon to Winston Churchill, and the other half of John's bookshelf with, oddly, photographic albums, and then started sleeping in his room again. John sneaked a peek at one of the albums and found it full of pictures of Cardiff. Not the nice sections, either. Mostly Splott. A few tourist shots of the Millennium Centre. 

He browsed through a few of the physics books but the notes were all in math. 

In the history books, large sections were crossed out angrily, often so deeply that the pages tore. Apparently the Roman occupation of England made Sherlock hopping mad. 

"My flatmate is exceedingly strange," John wrote on his blog. "But I like it." 

The next morning, he found a note on his keyboard: _Please don't write about me. I require zero internet presence._ And his blog entry was erased as if it had never been. 

*

"Give me your arm," John said. 

Sherlock looked up from his computer. There was a plate of celery and bread beside him. "Why?" 

"So that I can test you for anemia. You're looking pale." 

"I'm English." 

"Paler than English." 

"No," Sherlock said. 

"I'm a doctor. What a prat I would look if my flatmate had a treatable condition." 

"Your social standing isn't my concern." 

"Don't tell me you're afraid of needles," John said. 

Sherlock shut his mouth. And John remembered. Oops. 

Sherlock unbuttoned his cuff. "No," he said. He folded his cuff back and John saw the track marks, lurid pink on pale skin. They started on the back of his hand, John saw. He hadn't registered them as track marks. Back of the hand, up over the veins of the back of his wrist, and up the veins on the inside of the arm. Hundreds of marks. Old, not fresh, but not old enough to fade to white. A couple of years, John thought. 

"Test me for whatever you can think of," Sherlock said. "I don't think I have any diseases, but it occurs to me I haven't been checked." 

John nodded. He supposed he should feel a stab of fear at that, but he hadn't shared any bodily fluids with his flatmate, so there was no risk. He filled two syringes. Sherlock's veins were healthy and it was no trouble at all. "What did you take?" he asked. 

"Everything," Sherlock said. 

Sherlock came back clean of disease, except, as John suspected, anemia. John prescribed more beans, less celery. 

*

Sherlock's wifi router was in his room,and he not infrequently turned it off entirely. John gave up and started leeching off their neighbors (network name: xxxRonxDavexxx, while Sherlock preferred the more prosaic Network011) until one knocked on his door a few months after they moved in. 

"Sorry," John said. "My flatmate keeps turning ours off. Cup of tea?" 

*

John started to learn Sherlock's moods. After he took a case, he was quieter, withdrawn. When he turned the internet off, he was keyed up, nervous. When he sat in the sitting room and stared out the window, he was contemplative, and would have a conversation. "So--you don't get paid for the police work; do you get paid for your real work?" John asked. 

"No. Quite the reverse." 

"Then how do you make the rent?" 

"Oh. Prostitution." 

John choked on his tea and Sherlock turned away from the window and smiled. "I have a trust fund," he said. 

John coughed and thumped his chest. "That was unkind," he said. 

"My parents had money. I used to have money." 

"Spent it on drugs?" John asked. 

"It's mostly gone, but I have enough principal to pay the rent from the interest. Don't worry."

"Have you thought about private detective work? Finding cats and husbands?"

"Don't have time," Sherlock said. 

He was the oddest flatmate John had ever had, but John was becoming rather fond regardless. 

*

John wasn't above internet pornography. In front of it, actually, trying to wank himself to sleep, when the image stuttered and died because Sherlock had turned the bloody internet off again, and that was that. John zipped up (couldn't finish, too angry) and stormed across the hall to pound on Sherlock's door with his cane. "Oi! I pay half that bill!" 

"My work is more important than your penis!" 

John flushed and tried the handle; locked. "I've had enough! Turn it back on!" 

"No!" 

John took his shoulder to the door and, to his surprise, it gave. He stumbled into Sherlock's room in a flurry of newspaper clippings and righteous indignation. He hung from the door, trying to right himself. 

Sherlock's room.... 

Madness, John thought at first, and then hoarding, and then he recognized the theme as Sherlock grabbed him by the collar and tossed him back into his own room. Fire hazard, he thought, leaning on his door frame, his leg on fire. Sherlock slammed the door and jammed something into the cracks. 

Sherlock's room was papered in newspaper and printouts. He had a line along the wall over his computer desk of eleven faces plastered with notes. Another wall was taken up with shelves filled with various artifacts, bits of rock, old weapons, what looked like a metal plunger. The rest of the room was taken up with boxes and books and reams and reams of notes and notebooks with a path from desk to bed. 

John crossed the hall again and knocked. "Sherlock." No answer, but he hadn't expected one. "You could have told me you were a Doctor-spotter. I had a mate in university into that." 

No answer. 

He didn't speak to Sherlock for a week. 

*

He would have been nervous about Sherlock's well-being, except that food disappeared from the kitchen while he was at work and he could hear Sherlock moving around or typing if he pressed his ear to the door. When he finally saw Sherlock again, it was by accident; he came home from work early and surprised Sherlock coming out of the bathroom in his dressing gown. 

Sherlock blushed angrily. He tried to shoulder past John but John caught his arm. "Mate! Come on."

"I am not your mate," Sherlock said. The dressing gown slipped away from his bare chest but John kept his eyes on Sherlock's face, trying to prove a point. 

"I get it," John said. "The mystery. It's a classic, all right? Arthur Conan Doyle and Marlowe and Warhol. You don't have to hide it. I could even help. I'm a doctor, I'm good at problem-solving." 

Sherlock shook his head and pulled away. 

Later, though, fully dressed (with tie, which he wore when he was feeling especially beleaguered), Sherlock came down and sat in the armchair across from him. "You know what my work is. Our agreement was that you tell me why you have a limp." 

"But you didn't tell me, did you? I found out. No deal." 

Sherlock lifted his chin. "I thought you were trying to build trust with that speech earlier."

"Your secret isn't much."

"And yours is?" 

John smiled, tight-lipped, and marked his place in his book, and went to bed. 

*

He woke up with someone on top of him. He punched out with his strong left and caught Sherlock in the chest, making him gasp. 

Sherlock fell off the bed. John rolled over and snapped the light on. Sherlock lay on the floor, clutching both hands to his sternum, grimacing in more pain than he really should be feeling. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" John shouted. 

Sherlock rolled over, letting out a small whine. 

"Sherlock?" John slid out of bed. He pried Sherlock's hands away from his chest, ripped his shirt open, and found a large bandage on Sherlock's chest. 

Sherlock panted under his hands. "Sorry," John said. Sherlock shook him off and rolled back over onto his side, facing away. 

That was about when John realized he was nude. He looked for his dressing gown. "I should look at that," John said as he tied the garment on. 

"No," Sherlock said. "You can't make it any better or worse than it is." He let his breath out. "You don't have a mark on your leg." 

"No."

"You found me out. I thought I might find you out. But you have very unfortunate aim." 

"Let me see," John asked. 

Sherlock shook his head. He pushed himself to sitting, then stood. He offered John a hand up, which John took, balancing on his good leg. Sherlock retreated to his own room and John retired to bed and didn't sleep.

*

But Sherlock took him along next time he went Doctor-spotting. It was an easy trip, as such trips went, just out to the Canary Wharf disaster site. "Tell me the story," John said. "You don't buy the story as reported in the newspapers, right?" 

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "This was the site of the Torchwood Institute," he said. 

"Secret official Doctor-spotting government organization. See, I know this." 

"Doctor-hunting," Sherlock corrected. 

"Right." 

"Do you remember the ghosts? Tell me you remember." 

"Afghanistan," John said, and Sherlock snarled. "I heard--" 

"For God's sake, don't remind me of the official story. People were seeing beings crossing dimensions and could somehow be convinced they were experiencing a mass hallucination! Same with the Christmas star, same with the blood zombification! Same with the Earth being moved from one galaxy to another--don't you dare look at me tolerantly," Sherlock said. His face hardened. 

"I'm not. This is just my face." 

"Come on." Sherlock whirled and stalked down the construction scaffolding into the demolition site, leaving John to catch up as best he could. John found him halfway under a girder, scratching at something with a knife. "I've been working on this whenever I can."

"It occurs to me this is extremely illegal," John said. 

"Yes, but not dangerous. They already removed everything important. The real proof. This is just to prove to you. Hold this," and he handed up a metal conduit. 

It felt strange when John held it. Warm. Slimy, almost, except that there was nothing on it, it was a quality of the thing itself. 

"Pull," Sherlock said, and John pulled, and the conduit came away from the girder. 

"What am I holding?" 

"Part of an alien machine." Sherlock slid out from under the wreckage. "Coil it up." 

John did, and it coiled far tighter than it seemed it should. All the properties were just off. John twisted it into a ringlet and it kept its shape, then into a straight line and it held that as well. "Do you know what it does?" 

"Suspicions. No proof. I'm not telling you until you stop thinking I'm mad," Sherlock said. 

"I don't," John said, but Sherlock just sniffed. 

*

Sherlock showed him the collection. John went straight for the plunger. "Gloves!" Sherlock snapped. 

John raised his eyebrows. Sherlock slapped latex gloves against his chest. "I think it's dead, but I'm not positive," Sherlock said. 

"Oh," John said. 

*

"What is it?" John asked. 

Sherlock stared at it fervently, running his fingertips over the top. "Come on. I need a witness," he said. 

Then they were off. Sherlock hid the thing in a messenger bag and led John to Montagu Street, to a dingy little flat. "What's here? Tell me, you bastard, so I know what I'm looking at," John said. 

"It's my old flat. What you're looking for will be perfectly obvious if it works." He picked the lock. John didn't even bother giving him an earful about the law. 

The flat was dark but clearly occupied. "Quickly," John growled. 

"This is important. Vital. Shut up." Sherlock started fiddling with the machine. 

And then John saw someone walk through him. He yelped. 

"Hologram," Sherlock said. "Ssh!"

The air flickered around him and blinked. The furniture of the flat was overlaid by a familiar clutter. Sherlock's things, and among them, an image of Sherlock. "It works," Sherlock breathed. The image flickered again; the clutter changed, fewer notebooks and more books. A chemistry lab in one corner. John saw an image of Sherlock at the desk, smoking. This must be the mysterious time Before, then. 

"Too early," Sherlock muttered. "How--oh, the colors." He reset the image. The image of himself move to lie on the floor with his feet up on the wall, again smoking. Sherlock walked though the image and peered at the computer. "Right day," he said. 

The image went into fast motion, Sherlock smoking like a Benny Hill sketch. Then the image of Sherlock got up and wrapped a scarf around two legs of the desk and strangled himself--suicide attempt? John thought, shocked. Was this what had changed Sherlock? But no, it wasn't suicide--he was wanking himself. He tightened the scarf and came, banging his head against the desk, and then it was over before John could gather a lecture. "Sherlock!" 

"I don't do that any more." 

"That is bloody dangerous!" But now the image of Sherlock was tying off and shooting up. Christ. 

But--this was strange. The image of Sherlock was in a T-shirt and he couldn't see track marks. Once the image nodded off and stopped moving, it was very clear and John was sure. 

Sherlock watched the image impassively, clearly waiting for something, not reacting to his long-ago one-person orgy. 

The image stood up, shook, and fell over. Sherlock exclaimed and backed the machine up. He watched it again, this time slowly. 

There was nothing much to see. The image of Sherlock was slumped in his desk chair, dozing sitting up, and then suddenly stood, trembled, put his hands to his face, and fell over. 

Sherlock rewound again. 

The image fell over with track marks. John moved closer to the image. Sleeping Sherlock, no marks. Collapsed Sherlock, massive black and red marks all up his arms. "What the hell happened?" John asked. 

Sherlock rewound the scene again. "You know my methods. What do you think?" 

"Well--you--did something take you? You can't have left, you're in no shape--something took you and brought you back to the same place and moment? And you're looking for clues." 

"By God, he's got it," Sherlock said emotionlessly. He played the image back in slow motion. 

"You were abducted by aliens?" 

"Don't be--" Sherlock started, but then he looked to one side. "Actually, yes. I was abducted by aliens." 

John's phone beeped. He pulled the phone out and checked it automatically. So did Sherlock, with his own phone. 

"RUN," the message said. 

Sherlock looked at him. "Run." 

He switched the machine off. They ran. 

"Where?" John asked. Sherlock shook his head. He took John's hand and they pelted along together. 

John saw a flashy black SUV as Sherlock hissed and pulled him down an alley. They ducked into a building, up a flight of stairs, and through a furniture store. They ducked out onto a fire escape and from there to a roof. Sherlock pulled John down into the shadow of an air conditioner. They panted together, still clutching hands. 

He could feel Sherlock's heartbeat pound in the base of his thumb, slightly faster than John's, so that they beat out of sync, then in, then out. John opened his mouth and Sherlock touched his finger to John's lips. Silence. 

A door opened. 

"We can see you," a woman's voice said. Welsh accent. Sherlock's heart leapt. "We're Torchwood. We can do that." 

Torchwood? Really? The actual Men In Black? John raised his eyebrows. Sherlock pressed his finger into John's lips again. 

"No, honestly. You're just around there," the woman said, and she walked around the unit well out of arm's reach. 

She carried a gun pointed at the ground. "We just want to talk," she said, "but I'm afraid it's not optional."

"No," Sherlock said. 

She raised the gun. "Not optional." 

Sherlock pressed John's hand so hard John felt his bones squeak. "I suppose we must, then." 

John nodded, and when Sherlock stepped forward, out of the shadow, John kept going--he'd grab the gun, point it in a non-lethal direction, wrestle her, and Sherlock would get away--but Sherlock jerked him back, holding his hand in a grip like iron. "Don't." 

"Ta," a man said. "I hate shooting people." Welsh again. John looked from him to her to Sherlock, who was white as a ghost. 

"Down the fire escape," the woman said. "Dr. Watson first, so you can catch Mr. Holmes if he falls. He doesn't look well. There's more of us at the bottom, so don't be clever." 

Christ, they knew their names! "Tall order," John said. But Sherlock didn't react. He did look sick. 

They walked toward the fire escape and John whispered: "What's wrong?" 

"Torchwood," Sherlock replied. "I've been hiding from them for years. He's not a part of this," Sherlock said, raising his voice. "He's just my flatmate." 

"The guns are just for emphasis," the Welsh man said. "Go on." 

They climbed down, John first, Sherlock second. At the bottom were two gorgeous women standing to either side of the fire escape. Both armed as well, John was sure. He took Sherlock's cold hand. 

The two women escorted them down the alley. The Welsh man and woman followed. At the mouth of the alley, the flashy black SUV was parked. 

One of the women drove. John and Sherlock sat in the rearmost seat with the Welsh man. "Where are you taking us?" John asked. 

"And will we ever be seen again?" Sherlock added. 

"We're taking you out of the way while we clear up your nasty little collection," the Welsh man said. 

Sherlock grimaced. "You can hide the evidence but not the truth, Ianto Jones." 

"Hiding the evidence is enough." 

"You're acquainted?" John asked. 

"Never met, but I know who they are. That's Lois Habiba driving, Martha Jones beside her, and Gwen Cooper in the middle. Where's Mickey? Cleaning up my flat? And your boss?" 

"The boss is waiting," Ianto said. 

Sherlock looked out the window. "You're carrying a Lastian second gen stun gun that only looks like a pistol, but Cooper carries a real gun, because she was police," he muttered. "Habiba is never armed, why, but Mickey covers her, he's muscle, and this vehicle is outfitted with active anti-tacking mods but not for GPS, not for anything on Earth, you're not interested in that. Bigger fish to fry. Does UNIT know you kidnap people?" 

"You came with us voluntarily," Ianto said. "You have nothing to threaten us with, Mr. Holmes." 

"Except that you can't do this to a citizen of a free country. But we haven't been free in some time." Sherlock still looked out the window. 

...

[Sherlock was involved in the Year That Never Was. He's working off his guilt.]


End file.
